How to get game? Phantom knows

The Phantom Video Game Service takes on the console industry, the PC gaming industry, the video game rental industry and the video game sales industry, all from a box that looks like a sleek DVD player.

Something that does so much defies rigid labels, but it works like this: Subscribe to the service this fall and you'll receive a Phantom receiver that you hook up to your broadband connection and your television, so you can stream thousands of new and beloved PC titles to your TV.

With its sexy design, the Phantom receiver is intended for the living room or family room, where Mom, Dad and the kids can all play at once. But what if Junior wants to rock "Half-Life 2" while Muffy wants to watch "Gilmore Girls"? And during your two-year subscription, what if you want to upgrade your receiver's RAM or graphics card or processor to keep pace with the latest games?

Infinium Labs, which showed off the Phantom at the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, promises more answers in August, before launching the service in the fall. But don't expect an easy answer to that Junior-and-Muffy conundrum.

LET US BE EXPLICITLY CLEAR . . .

The Federal Trade Commission is banking that spammers have consciences. They figure that the same ilk that bombards you with promises of "hot teen action" and similar e-mail will pause to insert the words "Sexually Explicit" in the subject field before sending the missive.

The rule went into effect last week, as part of the "Can Spam" legislation that hit the books in January. The idea is to help e-mail filtering software find and remove such e-mail if the user doesn't want to see it. And if the user does, he or she will have to scroll down in the e-mail or click on a link in the e-mail to see graphic images, since the rule bars sexually oriented images from appearing in the opening of the message.

Not everybody is happy.

"This is a back door effort to violate people's 1st Amendment rights, whether well intentioned or not," said attorney Jonathan L. Katz of Marks & Katz, LLC, in Silver Spring, Md. Katz is a 1st Amendment lawyer whose clients include members of the adult entertainment industry.

Offenders could face imprisonment or fines of up to $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for an organization. Spammers are hard to track, however, having become masters of forged e-mail addresses. So much for having a conscience.